Life must go on
by Sara Kovac
Summary: After Satine’s death, Christian realises he can’t stand living without her, but life gives him a second chance and a new hope.Christian’s POV
1. A second birth

**LIFE MUST GO ON.**

**Summary: **After Satine's death, Christian realises he can't stand living without her, but life gives him a second chance and a new hope.(Christian's POV)

**A/N:** Well, it's my first Moulin Rouge fanfic and I've challenged myself to write in English. So, you can suppose English is not my first language (I'm Spanish, by the way). Please be kind and just e-mail me if you don't understand something. Then, I'd like to say I REALLY LOVE Moulin Rouge and probably everything that Baz Luhrmann ever directs.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters, they are Baz Luhrmann's or Fox or somebody I don't know... but I do own Claire, who you'll meet soon.

Nothing more to say then... just read, enjoy the story, and review.

_**1. A second birth.**_

It all had finished.

That is what I thought when I felt the knife cutting my wrist, when I saw the blood coming out of my veins, spilling on the floor. It was not as painful as I had imagined. And only a few minutes after I felt weak, tired, close to sleep. I closed my eyes and thought of her. Of my Satine. I could hear her like she was just in front of me, calling me with her sweet voice, saying that she loved me. I could see her slim body, her pale skin, her beatiful eyes. I smiled and let myself fall unconscious.

I don't know how much time passed until I opened my eyes again. But when I did, I thought it was not heaven, nor hell. It was my bedroom again. I was lying on my bed, sunk in a sweet warmth that made me feel still tired and weak. Then I turned my head and saw somebody sleeping by me.

A woman.

With brilliant red hair.

My heart started beating faster and faster. That could be heaven after all.

But soon I realised it was not. Because of two things: first, when I felt a warm liquid in my arm; and second, when the woman by me turned and I could see her face. She was not Satine. And I was not dead.

Tears came to my eyes, and I could do nothing to stop them. I didn't know how it had happened. Probably somebody had found me before it was too late, and had saved me. No, "to save" was not the correct word. I had not been saved. Being back to life was a punishment. It was so unfair, so cruel. Satine wanted to live, and she died. I wanted to die, and I lived. We could never meet, even without the Duke, without Zidler. Death was "darker than jealousy and stronger than love", so it will never let us reunite.

"_Non, non, reste tranquil, tu es bien"_ said that woman to me.

I understood her French words. Stay calm, you are right. She was the one who had brought me back to life. The one that I had thougth who was Satine. They had a similar hair, both red, but this girl's one was darker. And she looked younger too, almost a girl. She should be seventeen years old, maybe eighteen. Her eyes were light brown and, someway, innocent, peaceful. I felt better for a second by looking at them.

I tried to get up, but I wasn't strong enough to do it. She smiled when she saw my useless attempt and caressed my face slowly and carefully, trying to be as delicate as possible.

"_Toulouse!" _she called "_Il s'est réveillé"_

Toulose? He was there. I made an effort to sit on the bed and then felt a sharp pain in my wrist and that hot liquid again, my own blood. Then Toulouse appeared in front of me.

"God, Christian, what were you thinking about?" he asked.

I didn't answer. He knew why I had no reasons to live.

"Christian, Satine loved you. She would have spent her whole life with you if she had been able to. She doesn't want you to suffer" continued Toulouse in a low voice.

"I know" I answered "I don't want to suffer either. That's why I..."

"Just don't say it" he stopped me.

"I tried to suicide" I finished the sentence.

Toulouse closed his eyes painfully. He didn't want to hear that.

"You're lucky to be alive" he said "If Claire hadn't found you last night, you would be dead now".

"I want to be dead!" I shouted.

But I couldn't go on speaking because the girl put her fingers over my mouth. It was not violent, it was soft, sweet and sad at a same time. I stared at her and found her eyes again. Was it pity what I could see in them? She was sorry for me.

I remained silent, so she removed her fingers from my lips. I hadn't seen her before. I didn't knew who she was. Toulouse called her "Claire". Perhaps she was one of his models, a young prostitute from Montmartre. Probably he sent her to me last night, to see if I was right, and the poor girl found me covered in blood, trying to kill myself. She had saved me.

"_Tu as eu une seconde naissance_" Claire said "A... second birth. It's like that in English, isn't it?"

Toulouse shooked his head affirmatively and she smiled, proud of herself.

"Don't worry. We'll take care of you" she told me.

I didn't answer, just lay on the bed again and close my eyes. And some words came to my mind.

_Come what may..._

It was so difficult not to cry when thinking of Satine...

_TO BE CONTINUED._

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_Did you like it? Then review. If you didn't like it, review anyway and tell me how can I improve my story. But please be kind._


	2. Interesting conversations

**To my readers/reviewers.**

**Vegemite and Rawinth: Thank you. I promise I won't disappoint you.**

**ClassicRockChicky: a Mary Sue? What's that? Anyway thank you and, by the way, it's one of the best written reviews I've ever had.**

**Mr. Spooch: You lucky girl, I'm just updating today:) **

Oh and I'm having my exams... wish me luck or say a little prayer for me... (like the song hehe)

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**__**2. Interesting conversations.**_

Some time later, Toulouse left. But Claire didn't go with him. She sat on a chair by the window and started looking outside. I wanted her to go away, to leave me alone. Suddenly I didn't like the way she was pitying me. Even when I couldn't see her, I knew she was staring at me. She didn't let me think, neither sleep, her look made me nervous. So I said:

"Why don't you go?"

"I can't" she answered.

I turned to Claire. She was still sitting on the chair, and now her eyes were fixed in the street. In the Moulin Rouge opposite our building.

"Why?" I insisted.

"Because Toulouse told me not to leave you alone".

"I want to be alone".

"You wanted to die hours ago. You don't know what you really want".

She crossed her legs and her sight moved to somewhere beyond the window. For the first time the mysterious Claire seemed to be nervous. I sat on the bed and watched her, now she was avoiding to look at me.

"I don't need anybody to look after me" I told her.

"Of course you need".

"No. So you can go."

"I can't! " she replied, turning suddenly to me "I can't go until I'm sure you won't do something stupid... again."

I didn't know how to answer. I only had an absurd idea.

"So you speak English" I said.

"Yes" she answered in a cold way.

"How did you learn?"

"All men need sex. Even English".

Then I thought it shouldn't have asked. She seemed sad, or furious, when talking about that. She was a prostitute, but she hated what she did to make a living, she was ashamed of it. I could suppose this because of the way she was sitting now, tense and trying not to look as uncomfortable as she was feeling.

"Why did you try... to kill yourself?" she asked, taking her revenge on me. A very hard revenge.

"I have no reasons to live."

"I imagined, but why?"

I was going to tell the truth, but suddenly I stopped. Was I really ready to talk to an uknown woman about Satine? Could I admit she was dead? Just thinking about Satine made me want to cut my veins again and definitively, it was so painful, but I didn't want to share my pain, because it was the only thing that Satine had left for me.

"A woman?" Claire asked then.

"Did Toulouse tell you?" I replied in surprise.

"No. But men only behave like that because of a woman" she said "And I know what I'm talking about."

"Has ever a man suicided for you?"

"No, thanks. I don't want to be the responsible of anybody's life or death."

"Then you don't know what you're talking about" I stated.

Claire sighed tiredly and shook her head.

"You men give everything so much importance. If she left you... well, that's all".

"She didn't left me" I murmured.

If Satine had left me everything would have been much easier. I'd intended to hate her, to think she didn't love me, that she didn't deserve me... but Satine did love me and it made it all different. Like Toulouse had said, she would have spent her whole life with me if she had been able to. We both wanted to be togheter, but anyway it finished, all of a sudden. I hadn´t realised her illness until it was too late. And I still wondered why.

"So?" Claire said to keep my attention.

"She died" I managed to say.

"Oh" she said quietly.

Claire waited some seconds, expecting me to continue the story. But I didn't, so she started looking through the window again.

"I'm sorry".

She was sorry. God, did she really believed that this sentence would make things better? I didn't need her to pity me. I just couldn't stand it. Nobody but me could understand what I was feeling then. Only a person who had loved Satine as much as I did could understand it.

"I don't want anybody to be sorry for me."

"You don't want anybody to be sorry for you, you don't want to be helped, you don't even want to realise you're not well" Claire answered angrily. "You just want to pity yourself".

She stood up and walked nervously along the room. The sound of her steps, rhytmic as a heart's beating, didn't let me think clearly. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that everything she had said was false. But I couldn't find a good reason to refuse her words. So I just kept watching her, her movements through the room, from left to right, back an forth. Claire was trying to escape from me. Someway she was not satisfied with the last thing she had said.

"Can you stop?" I asked.

Claire stopped her restless walking and turned to me, her hands on her hips.

"I've offended you" she said "Is that?"

"I was only saying that you are nobody to judge my acts".

"So you mean you are not pitying yourself? I don't agree with that".

It seemed impossible to change topics. She would insist until I admitted I was too concerned with my sorrow. It could actually be true, I was falling deeper and deeper, but I didn't know how to overcome it, I needed time. It was imposible to forget Satine so quickly. Anyway I didn't want to forget her. Although thinking about her made me suffer, I preferred to remember her. It was like some kind on drug, I knew it hurted me, but I couldn't help living without my thoughts about Satine. They were my reason to wake up day by day. Probably I was depressing myself, sinking in old memories and not trying to start a new life... but those memories were so sweet and my supposed-to-be-new life was so bitter.

"I mean you can't understand what I'm going through" I explained.

Claire didn't like this answer at all. It made her even angrier. For a moment she was about to yell at me, but finally she took over her instincts, went slowly towards the window and said ironicly:

"Of course I can't understand. I can do nothing but shut up."

Then she seemed uncomfortable again. I confess I couldn't understand her changes of attitude. I had been said that it was very typical of women; however, I hadn't seen it before. Sometimes Claire was looking through the window, like she were ashamed, and next she was giving me advice about my feelings. It was a very confusing situation. And it was worse when we were not talking, just trying to guess what the other one was thinking about.

All of a sudden she spoke again.

"I think I'm going for a walk. Not too long" she said in a low voice, and added "I feel stuck in here, I need to breath some fresh air".

"It was you who didn't want to leave" I replied.

"I will only last five minutes. You won't have time to kill yourself".

"Then go. I'd like to be alone too".

She looked at me with her clear eyes and asked:

"Promise you won't do anything stupid?"

"Yes".

"I'll be back soon anyway" Claire stated. She didn't still trust me.

We crossed a last look before she went through the room and disappeared behind the door.

TO BE CONTINUED

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Did you like it? Then review. Did you read the first chapter and like it? Then review. Did you review the first chapter? Then keep on reviewing. (Well, I don't want to be so repetitive but reviews are very important for me). If you have any advice, any idea for the story... tell me. _


	3. Claire

Hi...

First of all, thank you all for your reviews and advice. This is my most succesful fanfic and I'm really happy about it. But it's being very difficult to write it anyway, so thank you again for being so patient and wait for my updates. I've had some kind of writer's block, but now it seems to be over and I think I'll be able to finish "Life must go on".

By the way, some of you asked about some things you didn't understand very well, especially Claire's character. So, this chapter is dedicated to her. Who she was, who she is and how she came to Toulouse's life.

I hope you enjoy it. Sorry for the lack of updates again.

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3. Claire.**_

Toulouse came to visit me next morning, when all past events seemed to be just a nightmare. My suicide attempt, Claire, everything. And for the first time after Satine's death, I could look throught the window and watch the Moulin Rouge face to face. I don't know why, but it didn't make me feel so miserable as before. For the first time I was thinking of the nicest remembers of Satine, the good moments we spent, not the painful things.

"How are you?" Toulouse asked when he entered the room.

I turned to him in surprise. I haven't heard him.

"The same as always" I answered. But it was not true. I was feeling strange, not better but not _the same as always._

"It will pass" he said. "I promise it will pass."

I sighed when thinking of his words and walked towards him. I didn't want to talk about the night before. I didn't event want to remember it.

"Sometimes we think that the world is over, that nobody can help us, but that's not true, there is always some kind of way to go out and back to life" Toulouse continued. I suppose he wanted to help me by doing that, though he was wrong.

"Toulouse" I said to him "Please stop it."

He obeyed me, awlked to my bed and sat on it. I came back to the window and asked the question I was so interested to know about.

"Who's her?"

"Her?" Toulouse asked.

"That girl. Claire, I think that was her name" I answered.

"Oh". Touloused lasted a long moment to talk again. I couldn't understand why. "She's one of those girls. From Les Deux Moulins. You know."

Les Deux Moulins was a bourdelle up in the Montmartre hill. Toulouse used to go there looking for models. Those girls were cheap and usually beautiful to paint. Claire fitted perfectly in that description. Young, nice, and rebel.

"I'm painting her" Toulouse said.

"I supposed that" I declared.

"She's not a... whore, do you understand?" he said suddenly. I was surprised by that words. "She's a good girl, she just couldn't choose her way to make a living."

I went to the bed and sat by Toulouse. The story started to become interesting.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because now I know her" he explained. "She was born in the north of the contry, somewhere near Lille. She never told me where exactly. Her mother died when she was a child, and her father had to raise her and her brothers alone... with almost no money and no time. And Claire was not the perfect girl that her father wanted, she didn't like to help in the house. They used to argue constantly... until Claire got tired of it."

For a second, I remembered my own father thinking of Claire's. She was not an easy woman to live with, I knew it and I had only spent an evening with her. She was too independent, too strong-headed to deal with her. Probably her father was like her. And two people who never agree can't live together.

"She left the house, her town and came to Paris. She was fifteen then" continued Toulouse.

"Fifteen? She was quite young" I told him.

"Yes. She worked at almost everything, but lost every job in little time. It's not difficult to guess why she finished in Les Deux Moulins. That's all." Toulouse said. "I was shocked by her story".

"It's the story of half the women in Montmartre" I replied.

"Yes, I know, but... but Claire is different. I looked at her for the first time and knew she was different of any women in Les Deux Moulins, in any place. I don't know why, but I knew I had to help her." He said.

Suddenly Toulouse looked changed. He had become another man. His voice, the shine in his eyes (not absinthe this time), the expression on his face, something had changed. Definitely.

"Help her?" I asked, still wondering about his transformation. "How?"

"I've taken Claire out of the streets. I don't want her to do that. Now I've employed her." Toulouse replied with a mysterious smile on his face.

I remained silent. It was not necessary to ask. He would tell me by himself.

"She's my model" he said.

"You pay her for painting her" I tried to understand.

"You're right. I need a woman to model for me, so I can draw her and sell some pictures. It's not so complicated." He replied ironically.

"Does she agree? Doesn't she want her pictures?"

"Absolutely! She's happy about it. She says that she will remembered in history for being my model!" Toulouse was more enthusiastic than ever. "We need each other. I give her money, she gives me art."

When we stopped talking, I realised that I has forgotten my pain for some minutes. I had been distracted by our conversation. But know it had finished, as soon as I remembered it, the empty inside me returned and I felt as strange as earlier. Toulouse noticed it and shook his head sadly.

"I can't make you forget forever" he said "But I did it for one moment, it's not bad".

Toulouse smiled slightly and got up. He had to go.

"Let's meet tonight and have some drinks" he proposed "So you can ask Claire if she's satisfied with her new job."

I didn't really mattered, I had just asked to follow his conversation. I was more interested on why Toulouse was so excited when talking about her. He looked really happy. It was good that at least one of us was feeling well. Anyway, a glass of absinthe wouldn't hurt me... I thought.

"Right" I said.

It made Toulose even happier, if it was possible.

"Right" he answered "I'll see you."

He left the room and closed the door behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED

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_Now... the same as always... review, give advice, tell me if it was good. Thank you!_

_P.S.: Les Deux Moulins was a real bourdelle in Paris, and the real Toulouse Lautrec went there for his models. Just to let you know._


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